Pawlenty Keeps Pushing Constitutional Amendment

In an interview on Fox News last night, Pawlenty rightly ridiculed Obama's planned spending freeze, but also kept pushing for a balanced-budget amendment -- an idea that will not pay him any political dividends.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6TS64WAWO8

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty must have felt a sense of vindication last night on Fox News when, mentioning his op-ed in the Daily Caller, he was asked about President Obama’s proposal for a three year budget freeze.  Obama’s proposal would affect non-security discretionary spending beginning with the 2011 budget, which would be higher than that of 2010, but then remain frozen until the end of 2013.

Pawlenty’s reaction?

"It's kind of like somebody eating three Big Macs and then deciding they are going to control their weight by ordering a Diet Coke.”

First, that’s a pretty good line.  Pawlenty could use more lines like this; it might ameliorate his “boring” problem.

Second, he’s right.  Freezing non-defense discretionary spending, which the CBO projected to grow by $35 billion in the next five years, will accomplish almost nothing meaningful, especially in the wake of bank bailouts and a stimulus package recently estimated to total $826 billion.  Federal tax rates are currently at a 60-year low, while spending is at a 60-year high and still climbing.  To tackle the budget deficit in any meaningful sense, something has to give – something more significant than freezing a small part of the skyrocketing federal spending.

Pawlenty then, true to form, pressed forward, asserting that what we need is not to freeze spending; we need to cut it, and then pass a balanced-budget amendment to the constitution.  I’m still highly skeptical that his constitutional amendment idea is going to pay the political dividends he must be banking on; that point aside, Pawlenty is on the right turf here.  He is not afraid to talk about the real 900-pound-gorilla in the room, the $65 trillion in unfunded entitlement liabilities, which if not dealt with – soon – will sink our fiscal ship.

Public anxiety about budget deficits will continue to grow, perhaps even more rapidly, when unemployment begins to subside and families are less concerned about making ends meet.  If things play out this way, Pawlenty will be in a good spot; however, my hope is that he has something more realistic than a constitutional amendment to offer when the time comes.